My Failings as a Teacher #1

My failings as a teacher are numerous. It’s not even like I ask my students to stand on their desks and say “Oh Captain, My Captain”. Well, not too often anyway.

The primary problem seems to be the ability of my students to actually understand a word I’m gibbering about.

This wouldn’t be so bad if I knew they didn’t understand me but I’m generally greeted with a clear “Yes” when I ask if they understood the last item we’ve covered.

Apparently this is a cultural thing and you need to always double-check your yeses. People will say yes to please you, not appear stupid or for some other reason.

The worst is when you realise that the person you had relied on to translate to the rest of the class for the last hour hasn’t understood you and been improvising in their translations. Fun fun fun.

Now I didn’t do the VSO trainer course which I now wish I had. Though my role wasn’t specifically to be a trainer thinking about the whole premise it’s clear enough – in order to share skills at all you must be able to train.

You never know though, perhaps I’ll suddenly become fluent in Otjiherero, Otjiwambo or Afrikans and can then instruct in that.